Fangmingyuan is a Beijing-based tea company known for sourcing really interesting cakes. Our visits to them have always been quite an experience. If you ever go to China and experience tea being served to you in Gong Fu style, you will soon realise that everyone does it in her own unique way. We believe that this is one of the strengths of this very method, its potential for creativity. Today, we added to our website Fangmingyuan cakes that were sold out, and decided to rinse the tea Fangmingyuan style in our tea session. They never rinse the tea with boiling water straight from the kettle. Instead, they add the water first to the Cha Hai and only then to the Gaiwan. We didn’t ask the reason for it but could imagine a few. Perhaps not to waste much of the tea with the rinse, or to slowly initiate a tea session, or rather to protect the tea ware. We will ask her in our next visit.